


salve

by ninemoons42



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Becoming a family, Child Prompto Argentum, Established Relationship, Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, Introspection, M/M, Prompto eventually has two daddies, Single Parents, Soldiers, Veterans, rescued Prompto backstory, single dad cor leonis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 14:53:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19747981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: He had only been hoping for a bed for a night, and he had been hoping to be able to slip away quickly because he’s got too many sharp edges, he’s got too many fresh wounds, and he can’t ask a weathered-kind man and a golden-haired boy to pick up the pieces of him -- but that is exactly what they start doing, when he falls into their orbit and the old-planed-wood-scented aisles of a late-night bookshop.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> CorNyx Week 2019, Day 4: Scars (That's the major prompt for this one, but a lot of the others also appeared along the way.)

It’s a good thing to be sleeping, is the thing, is the thought that persists in Nyx’s mind -- even as he slides closer to that blessed steep slope down into that same oblivion, into that search for some kind of -- physical -- rest. Some kind of blanking out of the world and of the sad strange whirl of his thoughts, and the screams of the people on the battlefield -- did it really matter whether they were on his side or not? They screamed in so many of the same ways, and sometimes he couldn’t even shake off their screams in his deepest sleep, in his deepest dreams and nightmares and the haunted mix of the two. Pleasant thoughts slowly changing into horrors, and horrifying thoughts slowly changing into pleasantries, and -- 

Maybe he needs to wake up -- but how can he do that, how can he manage it, when climbing out of sleep is as cursed difficult as falling into it in the first place. 

Sleep -- once he’s lucky or unlucky enough to get caught in it -- is a snare that digs into him with teeth, and maybe that’s what makes it more difficult, or maybe that’s just the pain in his nerves and in his bones, chattering bloody murder. Like claws and thorns pulling him down, fastened into helplessness, into the restless inertia of his slow days and nights.

Funny how he can still be thinking of some kind of rest, how he can still be wanting it, when -- he’s just arrived in town and it’s entirely likely that he’ll have to be shoving off again, soon. It hadn’t even taken three hours, four: all he had to do was stop well away from a street corner, just out of reach of the fitful spitting light coming from the street-lamp. All he wanted was to check his phone, maybe check the local listings -- all he wanted was a cheap place to spend the night.

And what did people do? Mutter around him. Make it harder on themselves to -- walk a larger circle around him. He’s not sure he didn’t imagine the ways in which they looked at him -- not his hair or his ink or his beads, those things aren’t the problem -- the problem is their eyes darting to the bandages that were still visible below his long sleeves -- and then, what kind of conclusion could they have come to, to want to avoid him in so many obvious ways?

Even the woman on the next block, as isolated and strange as he’d been in her undercut and also the long fall of her silver hair, had blinked at him and then found some excuse to not look him in the eyes as she’d pointed him in the general direction of something she’d called “the late-night shop”. 

And he knows what they might have all seen, more than just the slow pace of healing from his physical hurts.

He knows what it means to be a soldier, in these places that look peaceful and quiet and unperturbed, and then there’s also the part where he probably looks so lost. Sure he’s come home from some kind of war, but why is he among strangers? Why is he looking to earn -- just a pittance, just a day’s wages? Why isn’t he in a hospital somewhere, or at least someplace someone could give him the attention that the bandages mean and need?

But even as he thinks it -- he knows he recoils from the very thought. No, no more hospitals, not for him, not with those smells of sterilization and industrial-strength cleaners and the sourness that lingered even in freshly-laid sheets and blankets and pillows. The hushed urgent footsteps and come-and-go rhythms, never finding a slack time, someone always on the move no matter what time it actually was on the clock. The beep and flutter and tiny-voiced chatter of life-support machines, and the way the chatter could turn into urgent shrieks, just on the turn of a coin, the twist of a minute.

He’d rather be out in the world than subject to those nightmares, those shocks, and he’d rather grit his teeth against the waking aches and the stabbing dreams, than be laid out flat and insensible and dreaming only of the slow march into decay. 

He’d rather hear his own quiet moans in the depths of his dreams, or -- or maybe he’d rather be listening to this thing that’s waking him up in the here and now. In the farthest corner of this shop that he’s been directed to. 

A hum, and how strange it is, because it’s sweet and tuneless and nothing he recognizes to boot. Wavering and not entirely on key, but not in a way that grates on his ears -- and it’s leading him out of the lands of sleeping and dreaming and being able to escape the hurts and the unkind whispers of the waking world. 

A hum that could almost be enough to help him forget -- the numbness that seems to be stuck in his gut. The strangling kind of pain that seems to grow the more he’s awake, the more he’s turned back in the direction of a past that he only ever wants to escape. To forget. 

Who is humming, and why are they humming? -- and why is he so intent on listening to their humming? He could have just ignored them, right? There’re a few things he’s done and not-done, that all came from ignoring things. Orders, for the most part. His idiot misplaced sense of reaching out to everyone else in need, at the expense of his own heart and soul -- that one he’s almost got sharpened down to a razor-sharp edge, enough to slice himself open on the memories when he needs to do something rash -- 

And maybe that’s why he’s almost reluctant to wake up, almost reluctant to open his eyes and look for the source of the humming.

That stops, and is replaced by a quiet murmur. A deep soothing voice, and in response a chuckle, high and happy and as bright as the first glimpse of stars in a storm-torn night.

Happy people, in his vicinity -- he’s going to have to wake up and get himself out of there, so as not to -- intrude.

He’s trying to will some kind of sense, some kind of moving spirit back into his feet when -- he feels the smallest softest _whap_ against the side of his head and -- can’t help but recoil, can’t help but close his eyes further and brace himself for another blow, for harder, for more -- 

“Sorry!”

That’s -- not a word he normally hears, at least not where it seems to be directed at him -- and the hand that’s laid over the top of his head is soft and soothing and inexplicably small.

Small?

And he finally pries one eye open, and then the other, and -- the world, this place, is reflected in wide shapes of a blue that’s so deep he could almost fool himself into thinking there’s some shade of purple in there, too.

Strands of blond hair, pale gold. Skin covered in paint-spatter -- wait, no, the colors are different. Not paint. They’re freckles, he thinks, on second glance. Spiral-armed patch high up near one temple, and spots that seem to congregate around the shape of that mouth -- the round O of the boy’s shock, that slowly melts into something blinding. The perfect arc of a smile -- never mind that one of the bottom teeth is missing -- and all of it is directed at him, and he feels that brightness like it’s actual warmth falling onto his skin, after long long nights of winter and its frozen arms clutching at him -- 

“Are you hurt?”

He blinks. 

This kid who’s done entirely nothing wrong -- who is doing the precise opposite of wrong -- is leaning towards him. Head tipped towards one shoulder, tremble of worry in the roundness of his cheeks.

“Don’t -- don’t cry?” he asks, and before he can think better of the gesture he offers one of his own hands to the boy, completely forgetting the linen-lengths still wrapped around his wrist and halfway up his arm. “I’m okay,” he tacks on hurriedly. “You didn’t hurt me, I promise.”

“But that,” the boy says, not quite poking at the palm of his hand. “You _are_ hurt.”

“Not by your doing, kid, it’ll go away. Eventually.” 

Sitting up is harder than he’d thought, or maybe he’s just completely underestimated the power of this -- thing that he’s fallen asleep on. A monster of a couch that had actually made him wince the first time he’d seen it, because it was and still is covered in lopsided knitted things, in a patchwork quilt of far too many clashing shades of green, and bright crooked lines of thread in at least a dozen colors that he could name, but -- it had been the couch in the very back corner of this place and it had been out of everyone’s way, out of everyone’s sight, and -- he’d taken a book for form’s sake from the nearest basket-pile and skimmed a couple of pages before toppling over sideways and falling asleep.

What had that book been about anyway? Why does he remember -- a recipe for liver dumplings? The book that’s still lying open, perched precariously atop his rucksack -- he turns it back to the cover, to the table of contents, pages upon pages of names of dishes and -- 

Of course it’s a cookbook.

Of all the things that he could have pulled out of these shelves, these bins of books and their pages spilling out in their ink and in their illustrations -- this one’s a cookbook, all yellowed pages with the edges gone soft and torn and the stains faded into a pleasing gray, and vaguely he wonders how old the damn thing is, before he closes it carefully -- and he can still smell it, the faint captured-smoke and brittle-vanilla of its pages and its faded ink, even when he clenches his fists and closes his eyes.

“Cor!”

The voice of the little boy, rising again, and this time with a quaver on the edges of the surprisingly loud word, a clear signal of alarm if he’s ever heard one -- he blinks in the kid’s direction, tries to reassure him -- 

Footsteps on the rapid move.

Tension, gathering, in his feet and in his knees and all up and down his unsteady legs and he ignores all of it and tries to stand anyway.

So it makes perfect sense, of course it does, when he does get to his feet -- only to overbalance as he’s leaning over to grab his things, and before he knows it the world is tilting and falling sideways.

Or that’s him, falling, and he grits his teeth and gets ready for impact and yet another bruise to add to his ever-expanding collection -- so what else is new, really, maybe everyone else is right and maybe he really needs to say the word out loud, the word that’s part of him by now, that he’s been running away from even thinking -- 

Broken -- and does it really matter what broke him?

Except that he never actually lands: what happens is, he stops moving. What happens is, he’s caught about a foot or so off the floor, and -- funny how his instincts work, because he’s more aware of the two girls who’ve appeared in the crossing of the nearest aisles, eyebrows furrowed in worry, than he is of the person who’s actually stopped him from falling all the way down onto his face.

He’s more aware of the boy who’s taking his hand, who seems to be -- pushing on it? Oh, no, not that at all. 

With the look of fierce funny strain on that freckled face, the determined turn of that mouth: the kid’s trying to help him back into a standing position.

“Thanks,” is all he can think of to say, weakly, quietly, once he’s actually standing. Sure he’s swaying, sure he has no idea of what’s going on, but he’s up and he’s not falling any more, or at least not for now -- 

“Don’t thank us yet. Better if you sat back down. Can you do that?”

And that voice is so deep and so strangely soothing that the first thing he does is -- do as it suggests -- he backs toward the couch, or it feels like he beats a retreat towards the entire soft looming mass of it, and he doesn’t even protest when the boy pulls one end of the patchwork quilt over his lap. 

He doesn’t even really react until that boy grins at him, wonderfully guileless and forgiving and -- why does he think of the word _fond_ , when they don’t even know anything about each other, when he probably looks like stranger danger to this kid, and that’s without taking his actual story into account -- 

But this very same kid seems to remain blissfully unaware of his thoughts as he scrambles up a very long frame of very lean person, coming to a stop with a fist in the dust-burred lapel of a very worn leather jacket.

The kid’s more or less looking down at him now, from his lofty perch of -- the man who’s probably responsible for preventing Nyx from cratering onto the floor.

And try as he might, he can’t really think of anything else, except to repeat himself: “Thanks.”

“I’d ask you why you fell, but -- just between the three of us, I’d still be right if I blamed the couch.” 

And the craggy cast of the man’s features eases very gently, into something that could almost look like amusement. Something that could almost look like a grin -- but only if Nyx beamed several suns’ worth of daylight into the lines of him, maybe. Into the deep wrinkles radiating from the corners of his eyes, the arcs framing his mouth, the gray in the sparse growth of the beard that clings to his chin and -- almost nowhere else.

Strange place to grow that, Nyx thinks, and then -- he clocks the words and looks at his own lap, and then back up. “You’ve -- fallen asleep on this couch.” He really doesn’t mean for the words to come out as half an accusation.

The man only chuckles again, and then he ruffles the hell out of the boy’s hair -- Nyx has to look away at the indignant squeak the gesture gets, the exaggerated pout of the little boy. “I honestly don’t know anyone who’s ever sat down on that damned thing and -- stayed awake.”

“Dark magic,” the boy says, and he would have looked properly serious and entirely believable, if he didn’t spoil the whole thing then by laughing bright and delighted into the man’s collar.

“Boys,” and that’s only a whisper, only a gentle sound that sounds like wind-chimes and distant hymns. “I would appreciate it if the two of you didn’t hurt my couch’s feelings. Cor, really. Prompto.”

“Sorry,” the kid -- Prompto -- says, and he’s still laughing with his entire body even as he says it. Shoulders shaking, hair fluttering, the whole deal.

And before Nyx himself can follow that example, the woman’s turning in his direction. Her hand doesn’t actually land on his shoulder. There’s a depth of kindness in her eyes that he -- doesn’t want to shy away from, for some reason. Cool her voice as she speaks to him, too: “Fair warning, is all I’m here for. We’ll be closing at -- some point -- before the sunrise, certainly. I’ll be sure to come around again and let you know. For now: stay where you are, if you like. That’s one of the reasons for that couch, after all.”

He’s not quite sure he understands. “They just told me people go to sleep on this thing.”

“They do. It is -- adequate, for a short rest.”

“And you still keep it? You let people just -- sleep -- here? The way you talked just now -- I thought this was your bookshop.”

“As you say -- as it is. So I’ll do as I please with it, and the things I keep in it,” she says, and maybe she actually does wink at him before she taps two fingers over the little boy’s nose and turns away.

Sneeze, sounding far too loud to come out of the boy’s frame, and then a very small “Excuse me.”

“Prompto. Go see if there’s anything left of the cookies,” and that’s the man -- Cor? -- speaking again. 

“If they’re still there -- can I eat them?”

“Not all of them. Leave two. All right?” Cor says, making a V-sign with the hand that’s not bracing Prompto.

Wordlessly, smilingly, Prompto returns the sign, and then beams in his direction before wriggling down to the floor, and Nyx knows he’s not the only one watching him weave around the stacks of books until he’s out of sight.

That leaves Nyx alone underneath Cor’s quiet gaze, and the creeping hint of concern that only seems to sharpen this view of him. Only seems to make him look like he’s made out of steel and stone. All that’s missing are -- maybe the ranks that he might have worn on his shoulders, the slashes of ribbon-color that he might have worn on his chest -- and what in the world is making him think about Cor being in the military, being in the same hellish places he’d been, the slog of the day-to-day rota, the wearying hypervigilance? The stink of gunpowder, the little burns and spots in his hands of black grains that will take forever to work themselves off the surface and out of him -- the poison in every stitch of a uniform, in every bullet, in every last bit of holdout-weapon steel -- 

“At ease,” and how he hates to be proven right -- how he hates the instinct that compels him to do the exact opposite thing of what he’s been told. 

It takes a supreme effort and a series of very large very deep breaths before he can slouch back down -- and he maybe pulls up the corner of the quilt that Prompto had offered him, to cover his face with. 

How he hates the heat rising in his cheeks -- after all this time, how can he still blush, how can he still have feelings, how can he give those feelings away so easily -- 

“How recent,” and Cor can only be asking about his discharge. 

He swallows, hard, and makes himself answer. Cor’s been kind to him after all. He has to offer up some kind of scrap in return.

“Three weeks five days -- eleven hours. I think. If I can still actually rely on that damn clock they installed in my head.”

“-- I have one of those too. But it was rude of them to let you go without even giving you breakfast. Just an old man’s opinion.”

“Old?” Nyx can’t help but blink at him. He does have the lines in his face, and that’s about all the evidence Nyx has, and he’s met people gone salt-and-pepper before their time. He’s been required to salute people who look half again his age. 

How old is Cor? 

“I said what I said. What’s your name?”

He’s supposed to answer that question, but his brain gets ahead of him, sending the words straight to his mouth: “Anyone tell you you’re weird?”

For some reason Cor only shrugs, one-shouldered, at the entire rude bluntness of the question. “My son, on a daily basis.”

Nyx winces, just a little bit, and doesn’t know who it’s for. “I don’t know if that was supposed to make sense, but it does make sense.”

Only a quiet breath that sounds like a snort, so he hurries on: “I didn’t want any, any breakfast. I couldn’t have any. I was still out for the count -- they gave me my discharge papers I was still in a hospital bed. I just -- wanted to leave.”

“Yes, I know what you mean,” Cor says. “Your name please.”

He has to swallow, again, before he can reply, but as civilians do: “I’m Nyx.” And: “You’re Cor, I heard the kid say -- ”

It works, weirdly enough -- although Cor rolls his eyes fractionally, and that’s plenty to let Nyx know he’s on to him. “Prompto. Introduce yourself properly to him, if he comes back.”

Blink. “If?”

“If he doesn’t just fall asleep in the middle of the cookies,” is the reply. “I can only dream of him keeping regular hours, but this is still well past the time he should be in his bed.”

And that’s only a little mystifying, Nyx thinks, as he gets shakily to his feet and follows, as Cor turns on his heel and sets off through the wildly overgrown thickets and piles of books.

He watches Cor run his hand through his hair, and try to work out a kink in his right shoulder -- and somehow, maybe because he’s got some kind of magic himself, he doesn’t actually hit any of the books in their towering, rickety stacks, tossed onto shelves as they are, everywhere in the shop. 

As for Nyx, he finds himself swerving towards the till with the old cookbook in hand, and Cor, for some reason, stops next to a door, and doesn’t just vanish through it, doesn’t just walk away from him.

And again he takes a good look at the woman behind the counter, with whatever she’s making, something that makes him think of mother’s lace: a gorgeous tracery of gradient-gray flowing from a pair of fine knitting needles. 

He waits for her to finish the row, waits for her to peer carefully at the last set of stitches, and turn the work before setting it aside: and when she sees the book in his hand, she seems to tilt her head in a way that doesn’t make him feel small or scrutinized. “Good choice. I have one of the older editions. Useful, and the children think I’m a magician, when the holidays come around.”

Again the sense of -- something beneath the surface of the words, like massive upside-down peaks of meaning, the undersides of ice as it floats on the ocean -- and he can’t stop himself from blinking at her, because he doesn’t get it. “Sorry?”

“Near the back of the book,” she says, as she wraps his purchase in brown paper, as she writes a figure on a sheet of paper and hands it over. “Before the manual on canning things. There is an extensive section on candy-making.”

“Does it?” And that, too, causes a pang in his heart, and this one is a little harder to hide.

Fading memories of stealing candy and other kinds of sweets, to share with children, to share with the others in his unit. A bare sliver of hope to face another day with, tasting like sugar-grit and nut-dust. 

But he plasters a smile on for the woman’s benefit, and tries to stay polite -- he drops his change back into the small dish next to her till. “For -- maybe if there’s enough you can add to the quilts on your couch,” he says, as diplomatically as he can make himself say it.

“We’ll see. Call me Gen. You were here yesterday, a little too early. We are open from 8 until 6, the other way around.”

He nods, even though he can’t make complete sense of her words. “I -- I’ll maybe come again, I don’t know where I can stay yet.”

“He might be able to help you with that,” and she turns away from the till. Picks up her lace once again.

“Who?”

“Cor,” and that’s familiar, that’s the other voice he knows in this night, and -- Prompto, he remembers this kid’s name, remembers the sprightly way he moves -- practically skipping, and he seems to know where all the books in this shop might be, or at least he knows enough that he doesn’t need to look where he’s going, and he doesn’t even swerve or trip -- just barrels straight into Cor’s knees and laughs all the same. “I couldn’t eat all the cookies. Luna wouldn’t let me, she said I couldn’t have them all, I’d have a tummyache.”

“She’s right, and you know it. But that’s fine. We can always save the rest for later. Now,” and he watches Cor pick the boy up -- tilting his cheek again in Prompto’s direction, and the corner of his mouth quirks when he gets a loud smack of a kiss for his troubles.

And then they both look at him and he feels like he’s about to get shot down.

“Would you like to meet someone?”

“Yes. Hello, I’m Prompto,” and again Nyx is hit with the impact of that smile. No matter that it seems a little dimmed -- not a surprise at this extremely late hour -- no matter that it’s immediately followed up by a series of slow blinks. 

The boy sort of reminds him of the housecat that had guarded his mother’s kitchen, and the half-dozen stray cats that seemed to sleep in the corners of the outpost where he’d spent most of his years on deployment. Scattered patches of ginger fur in white, and then the one cat that had come out the exact reverse, with splotches of white in its ginger striping -- and how many times had he found that one sleeping somewhere on or near or under his bunk? How many times had he woken up with its tail draped over his wrist or his ankle or his hip, and it had been weirdly meek for a cat, never doing anything else around him except quietly washing its paws, and shedding white hairs onto the pieces of his uniform, onto the worn seams of his bedding. 

It had been a nice cat, he thinks, it had purred at him even when he’d done nothing for it, or to it. He hadn’t had enough to feed it, and he’d never done anything but clean his guns and complain under his breath, when he had been in his bunk -- but the cat had kept coming around to him anyway, had kept flicking its ears in his direction, had fallen asleep near him -- 

Prompto, at least, doesn’t seem to be the type to shed, he thinks, as he offers him his hand and tries to look less of a wandering fright. “Nyx. Nice to meet you, kid.”

“Mmm,” sleepy-eyed sweet smile, and then he turns away -- Nyx tries not to feel hurt -- but Prompto only lays his cheek against Cor’s shoulder and goes quiet, all at once, all on a long low breath. 

Easy to guess that he’s fallen asleep, before Cor mutters, low and weirdly kind -- not the sort of kind that would make Nyx grind his teeth, either. Not a line of him that seems condescending or mocking. “If you want to sleep in, and not get kicked out -- we can lend you a, well. A different kind of couch. But -- only if you want it.”

“Why are you -- ” he starts.

“Tch. Been there, obviously. Can’t you guess? -- you’re standing in the place I was given safe haven,” is the reply, and the smile that settles in the corner of Cor’s mouth only looks a little too sharply amused. “I like that couch but I don’t think my back can take sleeping on it any more, and -- at least I can offer an actual bed-like thing.”

“You seem so certain I’m not going to, I don’t know, murder you and the kid while you sleep.”

“I’d like to see you try,” and Cor chuckles, actually chuckles, as he turns away.

And Nyx doesn’t actually know why he’s following in those footsteps. The sight of that broad back, those straight shoulders -- that doesn’t even seem to bother the boy draped over one of them. He could almost envy the kid that perch, that seems a little too big for him but maybe he doesn’t care. The careless way he’s sleeping, exactly comfortable, and Cor either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the patch of wet forming on his jacket, either, as Prompto clings recklessly, and starts to snore, soft whuffling sounds.

The only other murmur Nyx hears out of the kid, in fact, is when they’ve crossed the street and Cor’s fumbling in his pockets, and of course it can’t be easy to extract his keys and keep a body mostly balanced, with only one working hand.

He doesn’t even get a chance to be of any help -- Cor seems to have no problems with actually opening the door. Only finding the keys had been difficult -- and then, he has to follow the man and the boy in.

What else can he do when they’ve opened the door to him?

At least he can secure that same door in their wake -- and some kind of old hunted instinct makes him undo and redo the locks three times -- what would Cor make of that, he wonders, vaguely -- and then he’s being shown to an even larger couch, and an actual pile of duvet on one end, and he -- kind of goes weak in the knees, and can’t help but stumble over. The couch is soft and supportive at the same time, unlike the one in the bookshop that sags in far too many places, and he sighs when he topples onto the cushions, and immediately feels sleepy again, which really doesn’t make sense -- although he can’t even remember how long he was asleep among the books. “Are you sure you don’t mind me staying here?”

“No. Go to sleep. You’ll be able to carry on a proper conversation when you’re actually coherent. Which, for the record, does not have to be the moment you wake up. Talk to us when you can. When you’re ready.”

He watches Cor disappear into another room -- soft lights going on, and they stay on, and that door stays open, and then -- it’s too much.

The things he’s left behind, and the things that he’s still carrying, and the book that had been no more than some kind of impulse purchase because there’s no damn way to send it on to someone who might have actually made use of it -- 

It all falls away from him and he drops again, but this time -- this time he’s warm, and he maybe feels like he doesn’t have to keep looking over his own shoulder, maybe feels like there’s no real need to find someone to watch his back. Maybe there’s no need for any answers to all the questions whirling around in his head right now.

Maybe maybe maybe -- that’s all he’s got right now --


	2. Chapter 2

Maybe he’s been waiting for it, maybe he’s been wanting it: this changing rhythm of the days, the slide of the months on the calendar, the real shift in the weather and the temperatures: but he wakes up in the middle of the night when he feels the very small and insistent tug on his hand, and the only reason he doesn’t bolt upright is because he knows exactly one person who’d approach him like this, who’d wake him up like this.

And -- it only takes a breath or two before he’s halfway to figuring out what’s going on, and before Prompto can even ask for permission, he’s already getting an arm around him, he’s already helping him climb up onto the bed, and he deposits him and his pile of shivering thin blankets onto the pillows. 

“It’s always a surprise, isn’t it,” he says, softly, as he watches Prompto reach for another blanket, and wrap himself up in it. “One day you go to sleep and it’s warm, and then you wake up in the middle of the night and you’re freezing your toes off.”

“My feet,” he hears Prompto say, solemn agreement. “I don’t like the cold.”

“I don’t imagine you do. Hmm. Did you want the hot-water bottle?” he asks, and he has to get his fingertips in beneath the blankets to be able to ruffle blond hair at all. “You look like you need it.”

“’M fine. Staying?”

And after all this time Prompto still asks, and Cor just huffs out a breath and gathers the entire heap of him closer, tucking him securely along his side before lying back down.

“Yes, I’m staying. Better?”

“Thank you,” only the words come out slurred and slow already, and he knows he’s always envied this boy and his blessed sort of ability to bounce back from bad dreams, from shitty weather and arguments filtering in even through half-closed windows. 

And it isn’t the first time he almost thinks about praying, and -- doesn’t -- because it’s not prayer that will allow Prompto to keep holding on to what he already has.

Not that alone, at least. There’s a lot of hard damned work ahead of him. Days and days of having to deal with the world coming for him.

Gods know Cor’s already worn down from fighting the world for his boy’s sake: his boy, his, no matter how that’s come to pass, no matter the immense differences between them. The fact that he calls this boy _son_ when they don’t even look anywhere alike, is just the first and most obvious of those fights. The minor ordeals, few and far between, but serious all the same: because Prompto’s a ball of sunshine most days, but on the rest, well.

Sometimes he refuses to eat for hours on end. Sometimes he simply will not talk despite any and all manner of coaxing and careful gentle questions. Sometimes he’ll wake up in the middle of the night thrashing exactly like he’s drowning, despite being in a warm bed. 

The worst days by far are when he wakes up and looks at everyone as if they’re corpses, as if they’re dead bodies moving mechanically and robotically around him -- and he’ll have the same deadness in his eyes, the same bleak hollows.

How can he even start to explain these things to the world outside of the bookshop -- how can he even start to understand how he’d fallen into the bookshop, and found himself and his son surrounded by caring faces?

There are, at least, smaller mercies, and he hoards them, for his sake and for Prompto’s. Food on the table, a roof over their heads, money squared away in proper bank accounts for the now and for the future, soft toys and books they’re both interested in reading, the blankets on this bed and the duvets piled up in the nearby closet -- he’ll have to get some of the lightweight ones out of storage now that Prompto’s starting to feel cold again. 

He still has to make the extra effort to -- not remember, or at least not dwell -- on the entire hows and wherefores of Prompto being in this house in the first place. 

He still has to make the extra effort of helping Prompto forget those exact same hows and wherefores, and the consequences festering in his boy’s heart and mind and soul.

Screaming nightmares and tears and finding Prompto feverish and half-conscious on this side of the front door: not outside, and that had been the first week after being rescued, because he was and still is too short to reach the two other deadbolts. And Cor still curses the weeks that passed before he could get the entire sad story out of him, in halting small words, in violent sobs. Blank faces wrapped in white. Blank corridors that stank of cleaning chemicals. Steel edges and polished surfaces. 

And he knows from bad dreams. He’s been known to have those, himself; the only difference between him and his son is, he probably doesn’t wake up screaming. It’s been years since he can remember doing anything of the sort.

He’s had the time to -- get used to the things that Prompto had described, in his roundabout way, blessed only because he did not seem to actually understand what he was talking about. Red drying into brown, and the prick of needles in his wrists, in the crooks of his elbows. Straps on beds. Bodies that no longer moved or breathed. 

And those had only been the parts that Prompto could half-remember -- lacking the knowledge to put it all together into a coherent picture.

In a way, the Prompto sleeping next to him -- who’s managed to shove the knuckles of his left hand into his mouth -- isn’t that same child, hasn’t been for some time now, and that’s probably the major blessing in his life right now, Cor thinks. The fact that instead of that fragile mind and that half-broken body, he has this boy instead, who’s squirming further into the pillows, not even awake in any way. Blissfully asleep and gurgling to himself -- maybe trying to soothe away the cold -- either way he’s the vital beating heart of this place, of this attempt at making a house, a room, into some kind of home.

And that’s no easy process, this one’s taking its own time, and sometimes Prompto still falls back into those old hurts, and it breaks Cor’s heart every time.

But then again: Prompto’s not alone. 

Neither is he, come to that.

Not alone, not any more -- he hopes, he prays, if there’s nothing else he asks for. (Who would listen anyway?)

And that’s how he -- sighs, and rearranges himself and his boy on the bed so they’re both lying down comfortably. That’s how he smooths the creases out of Prompto’s blankets, to a small contented sigh.

He takes a little more situating, himself, and in the end he gives in and hauls one of the quilts out of the closet and sticks his feet underneath its feather-weight bulk.

Only then does he reach for his mobile phone and -- there’s a message waiting for him, and he reads it once and then twice before swiping to ask: _How did you know I was still awake?_ The message is only a few minutes old.

And there’s a quick flicker of ellipses on the move. An incoming response. _Because midnight feedings. Is P okay?_

_Asleep. He woke up and got into my bed. It’s getting cold again._

_I should probably see about getting the chimneys cleaned out. If you’re starting to get cold, then we can’t be that far behind._

He lets himself sigh, at that, since there’s no one who’s actually here to comment. _Are you all right?_

_As well as might be managed,_ and he can hear those words in the exact grumpy voice of the woman he’s talking to. _At least N is settling down, now. I can hope that we’re over the worst of his colic, although I probably should brace for some kind of repeat performance next year. He’s kind, otherwise; he sleeps all the time and doesn’t really fuss._ Pause, and then there’s one more incoming message: _When can I see P again?_

The one thing she can’t really say to him, not with her in her position. Not with him in his: 

When can I see you again?

He doesn’t acknowledge that and neither does she, he thinks, and he types something else: _I’ll try to get away for the holidays._

_If you need any help, you know how to reach us._

_Thank you. I will._

He sighs, and puts his phone back on the table, and thinks about -- this change in the weather, the changes in the days. About falling back towards the busy season for the bookshop. About making sure that Gen and Luna and Cindy can survive the coming days and hours of being run off their feet, what with students and people coming back from trips and people preparing for holidays. 

That’s the thing he can do for them, and he means to do the job right, and -- sometimes that means he just has to be more careful, balancing one part of his family against the other.

The next message he sends is -- well, he can’t really be admonishing over a text-based connection, can he? _I can try my best, but I hope you’ll understand if I can’t,_ and all he can do is mean every word.

This time he watches the ellipses blink on and off for a ridiculously long time, before the nearly-curt response finally comes through: _Cor._

_Aulea,_ he sends back instantly. _And Regis if he happens to be there._

_He’s not, but I’ll let him know you were looking for him._

He blinks. _Gone again? Where’s he run off to this time?_

_Somewhere sunny. And before you ask, I made him go._

_Should I expect him then?_

_I wish I knew._

And then, she sends another message: _We were always going to get to this point, weren’t we._

It’s not a question, and it’s not the question they avoid -- and he understands, and it almost makes him swipe out of the messaging window, and make a phone call instead.

He doesn’t; he sends the next response. _This is for the best. I said it, you said it, and we agreed on every single word of it. We meant it, and we shook hands on it. And you know why._

_Yes, I suppose so._

_This way, at least, we’re still family --_ And he’s still trying to figure out what else he can say to help her feel better when -- he hears the scritch-scritch of a key. Locks clicking open and then -- boots on the move.

It takes him all of a moment to remember, again -- and then he takes another moment to wonder if their houseguest is all right.

On the other hand: it doesn’t take much to _ask_ , perhaps. To offer questions, and to request answers, where they might exist.

Reason enough to press a fleeting gentle kiss to golden-fluffed hair. The dressing-gown hanging on the hook on his side of the bedroom door, vines stitched onto the lapels in wandering lines, shoulders a little limp around the edges from lack of use -- he ties a loose knot to hold the whole thing closed and then he shuffles out towards the kitchen, in his turn.

“Trying to stay quiet,” he hears Nyx say, from the direction of the couch that’s also his bed. Low graveled worn-down words. “I have no idea when you put the kid to bed so -- ”

“He was awake an hour ago,” and Cor lets himself fall into one of the chairs around the kitchen table, no two of them actually matching. The house is so small that they can still whisper to each other and have a conversation, and not have to worry about waking a small boy up. “He got cold.”

“Can’t blame him. Couldn’t really feel my feet, the last mile or so getting here. Which is why,” and he watches Nyx gesture toward the kettle on the stove, the mug on the countertop, the trailing thread and tag. “I’ll -- replace what I took. I’ll pay you back for -- whatever.”

“I said you were welcome to what we had,” he says, and the babble of the water coming to the boil is nearly as loud as his own voice in the night-quiet of the kitchen. The echoes off the tiles and the steel of the sink, and the shift of Nyx’s slow movements as he walks over, as he deals with his tea and the dishes he’s using, the things he’s depositing in the sink to be cleaned up after. 

Which lets the thought strike him, and he gets back to his feet -- he gets all the way back to his room and the same closet he had opened, and it’s easy to cross back through the entire house, towards the couch that Nyx has returned to. The mug of tea shakes only a little in his hands.

And Cor drops the heap of fresh linens between them, in all their lopsided stitching. “Sorry about the pattern,” he says. “We couldn’t find anything better at the time.” He gestures at gaudy cabbage rose-print in brown and green, still weirdly vivid in the icy hush. 

He’s expecting some kind of stilted grin, really, some kind of fumbling thanks, but -- Nyx peers curiously at the quilts, and then shakes his head, and the soft laugh that falls out of him is entirely gentle and strange and sweet. 

“These are familiar. Down to the colors even. I could’ve sworn I’d slept in these quilts as a kid,” and some kind of shadow passes over his half-smile, even as Cor feels his eyebrows climb up towards his hairline. “Of course that’s not possible, but -- these are nice, they’re good, thank you.”

“Do you mind me asking -- ” he begins.

“I do. But I probably need to answer you don’t I?”

“No,” he says. “Not if it bothers you.”

“It’ll bother you too, if I don’t answer the question. So I will.” He watches Nyx look into the depths of his tea, and then drain it -- and when he looks up Cor has to hide his wince, because now he looks like he’s heading to a court-martial. He looks like he’s heading off to be shot at dawn. All he needs are the chains and the handcuffs, and the blindfold loosely hanging off his neck, noose-shaped.

“Home’s gone. Lost it a long time ago. Everything burned down, and if you guessed that was the starting point that led to -- soldiering, you’d be right.”

“And your family?”

“Safe.”

He actually breathes out a small sigh of relief. 

“Or they were safe,” but there’s no tension in those words that he can see. “Mom died a couple of years ago. Natural causes, she was just -- she’d done too much, she wasn’t in pain when she passed on, she’d even gone all the way and planned her final expenses and everything. We just had to sign things and it was all done, we left our tears on the papers, she’d thought it all through for us. I can’t really complain. 

“And my sister. Little miss firecracker. She’s traveling the world, she sort of tends to come and go exactly as she pleases, you know? And she gets to do what she wants and what her bosses want her to do, too. Last I heard she was heading out to Accordo. I’m supposed to call her sometime this week, but I’ve called her twice and she hasn’t been picking up, so.”

“You worry for her,” he guesses, and he -- well, he’s not planning to make tea. It’s too late for that -- but he can pour himself a cup of water, so he can be polite company -- he’s thirsty anyway, and he drains the cup and refills it, and Nyx still hasn’t answered him by the time he returns to the couch.

“I miss her,” is what Nyx finally says. “And that’s entirely normal isn’t it? But it doesn’t make sense. I didn’t miss her when I was playing soldier. I had to be reminded to call her, or write letters to her and to my mom. I don’t understand how that works. But yeah.”

He can’t make heads or tails out of it, either -- it’s just as strange to him -- but he can at least extend the most ordinary kind of understanding to the man. “Okay.”

“And you’re not going to -- comment?” 

He does feel the look, then, and -- he can feel the keenness of it, the edges in that questioning glance, and he tells himself that that’s because Nyx is actually an arm’s length away. Is actually sharing these physical spaces with him.

Not like Aulea: and the small tragedy of that, he thinks, is that she’s not even that far away from him, not in terms of access. It’s not like he couldn’t actually fly out to her on an hour’s notice. He’s done that before. She’s done it for him.

It’s just that -- she has her cares, now. She has her concerns. She has her husband and she has her son, and she has everything else in her world to be worried about now.

As he does, with the critical difference that his world is much smaller than hers, and -- he glances back in the direction of his bedroom, alert for the reappearance of an awake and shivering Prompto -- but as long as he doesn’t hear a peep, he’s entirely free to turn back in Nyx’s direction. 

Gives in to the impulse to reach out to him: although he doesn’t actually make contact. His hand stops just shy of the damp patches on the shoulder of the heavy jacket. “Does it help,” he asks, as quietly as he can, “to talk about it?”

“If you let me talk -- just talk. That’s it, I mean that’s all I can really do anyway -- you know I don’t want to fix it, I don’t want any help. I can’t -- fix it.”

“You say that now -- but if that changes in the future, maybe you can let me know. I -- can try, or we can,” and he tilts his head in the direction of his room, and Prompto sleeping.

This smile is still a little too lopsided, but maybe it sort of reaches the lines around Nyx’s eyes, he thinks. “See, how did I know you would say that? Why did I always feel that you’d say it, and, and mean it? Maybe that sounds strange to you. And I’d ask why you want to help but -- hey, you already answered that question, is what you’re going to tell me. Right?” 

“I don’t sound like that,” he says, as mildly as he can.

Nyx stares at him for a moment, and it should have been unattractive, with his jaw sagging open and all its smudges of stubble and stress-breakouts -- but he buries his laughter in the cabbage-roses quilt, and he’s the exhausted kind of radiant, then.

Cor hides his own smile in the sleeve of his dressing-gown.


	3. Chapter 3

What is it exactly that wakes him up, this time? -- lightning in a vicious flash, far too close for comfort, striking so close he can feel and see the hairs on his arm rise? The thunder that comes with it, more of a roar than a rumble, loud enough to almost shake the bed? The shriek of rain hurling itself at the windows, fierce clawing daggers?

Or is it -- the tension, the shift, in the bed alongside him? Acres upon acres of skin, bared recklessly, still sweat-slicked. Moving away from him, though, and he can’t even fault Cor for taking one of the blankets and slipping out -- though not before he leans in, and Nyx knows what he has to say, knows he would have said it if Cor hadn’t stirred first -- 

“Go,” he says, against that sleep-warmed mouth. 

He gets a brush of a kiss for that, somewhere between a promise and an apology.

Temperatures rapidly dropping, but he can’t stay still under the covers, and he -- lets it all out in a low sigh.

Breath, and another -- easier now, then he’s sitting up, too. Blankets pooled in his lap. Head tilted in the gloom, listening for Cor as he moves, stealthy barefoot purpose.

He would have been entirely capable of -- sitting and waiting, gods know it’s no different at all from hurry-up-and-wait, and this bed in this room in this house is paradise compared to some of the places he’s had to hold for some damned mission objective or another -- but slowly he realizes, too, that he hasn’t gotten through this night unscathed. Not quite yet.

Not in a way that he regrets, now or in an entirely theoretical later: he wouldn’t give up the patch of heat on his shoulder, in the exact shape of Cor’s mouth, for anything. Bigger, spreading wider, and if Nyx drops that same shoulder he’ll feel the tiny gashes, the welcome flashing pain, teeth-marks in the heart of that sore spot and in another few hours he’ll be colored up indeed, from pink to deep blue and purple.

He’ll just have to keep it hidden, so he doesn’t have to answer any well-meaning concerned questions -- and he’ll have to hide the smirk to go along with it. 

And that’s just the first set of bruises in this night, the first set of love-bites, nothing unpleasant about them, nor in the getting of.

Heat rushes to his cheeks just thinking about earlier: himself on his hands and knees, fighting the desperate urge to just fall -- lower himself to his elbows, or just put his shoulders _down_. Cor behind him, moving hard and fast and merciless in him, the slap of skin against skin. How much it hurt to clamp his mouth shut against the screams clawing for purchase in his throat -- the yowl that would have had Cor’s name wound into it, if he’d given it voice -- 

And Cor had only made it worse, had only twisted the screws further, as he hissed into the mess he’d made of Nyx’s shoulder, obscene encouraging: “I want to hear you say it.”

How he’d nearly fallen then, down to the sheets and down into his orgasm -- instead Cor had pulled out nearly all the way and Nyx had keened out at last, protesting the almost-loss, cursing him breathlessly until he’d begged, so close and nearly mindless: “Y-you can’t stop now -- ” 

“Only because you asked.” There’d been a laugh in there, maybe, around the slur and the gasp of those words: but Cor had thrust back in, filling him up in one merciless stroke, and it had only taken a few more moments of hanging blindly over the precipice before -- needing and needing and -- finally, gratefully, gone -- 

And the very thought of it, the very real immediate memory of it, ratchets down his nerves once again and he’s hot and cold and full of those edges, like he’s nothing more than that need, growing afresh -- enough that he thinks he wants to see it for himself, that imprint of Cor’s teeth in him -- he’s reaching for his phone on the small table next to the bed -- 

“I can turn the lights on if you’d rather,” he hears Cor say. There’s a resonance to his voice, pitched to carry just clearly enough, despite the storm raging outside.

Depths of him that wrenches a small sob from Nyx’s mouth, but he tries to cover it up with a cough. Tries to speak normally, when he says, “I don’t even know how that works. How you work. I just noticed you went to Prom’s room and then came back here in the dark? What is it with your eyes?”

In the flash of lightning that splits the night sky wide open he can clearly, clearly see the smirk that’s fixed onto Cor’s mouth now, and he’s hot and he’s beautiful and he’s a pain in the back of Nyx’s head, of the can’t-get-enough kind.

Gods, how lucky is he, really, to be able to have this -- that this is actually something he can say is his. 

Cor’s still looking at him funny, anyway, and in the next moment he says, like he’s only still paying attention to their actual conversation, “Fuck if I know. I can see what you’re trying to do, is all.”

“But walking around without any damn lights?”

“How long do you think I’ve lived here.”

He snorts, and it mostly sounds like a small disbelieving laugh. “Hey, that’s cheating. You can’t expect me to know these things.”

“Not yet.”

Creak and groan of the bed is the next response Nyx gets, and the give of the mattress as Cor climbs back into the rest of the blankets with him, and because he seems to be intent on lying flat on his back Nyx has to content himself with doing the same, and then with linking their adjacent hands together.

This is nice, too.

Better than nice, even; he’s maybe still a little starved for this kind of touching, or he’s still trying to get used to people wanting to touch him like this. 

There’s a warmth in Cor’s skin that leaches into him, slow and strangely gentle, creeping in to replace all the fear that clings to him in the teeth of the raging storm, and he maybe doesn’t flinch as much, when the thunder crashes overhead once more. 

In the breathless quiet after, he remembers to ask: “How’s Prom?”

Low, low chuckle, and there must be something wrong with him, because that hot sharp sound hits like a knife between the ribs, like a kick in the gut, and something entirely not-innocent uncurls once again in Nyx’s gut. Wanting, and so inappropriate _and_ appropriate to this conversation, all at the same time. It doesn’t make sense. He wants to hide the heat rising up his throat, in his cheeks -- but where? Certainly not in Cor because he’s the precise actual reason why he feels like this -- 

Cor, who sounds entirely like himself when he says, “Dead to the world. Rolled himself up in his blankets -- he’ll be fine. I think. Honestly, I’m just happy he doesn’t have to hear this.”

“You think,” and Nyx has to force himself to breathe normally, speak normally, like he’s not completely embarrassed. Like he’s not about to get caught --

Maybe he should punch Cor in the shoulder -- as a return for the bruise, if nothing else. 

And somehow he manages to carry on with the conversation, as if he’s still thinking these kinds of mundane thoughts, mundane concerns.

Although he knows he means it because -- of course he’s found some sort of space in his battered soul for the kid sleeping down the corridor; the surprise had been in finding out that he still could do something of the sort. “I can’t believe he sleeps through shit like this; I mean, we’re wide awake and he isn’t.”

“Didn’t get that from me.”

Nyx has to laugh, and turn to his side, and try to muffle that laughter in Cor’s arm. 

Cor, who still smells like sweat and this bed, and of Nyx himself -- and now there’s a hint of mountain meadows, too, like wildflowers -- it must be from the scent-lamp that sits in the smallest warmest corner of Prompto’s room. 

And it’s nothing like the salt-whipped winds, it’s nothing like Nyx’s own home-shores, the ocean-voices that he’d recognize no matter where in the world he might find himself -- maybe that’s the reason why he closes his eyes, why he takes a deeper breath, why he can’t stop himself as he presses a kiss to that same arm. To Cor, still the same, still here, still -- 

The warmth of him that Nyx craves, in all its different shades, in all its different contexts. Warmth that they can pass between each other, gently, as inevitably as coming together -- and Nyx doesn’t know who makes the first move, this time -- did he, when he kissed Cor’s arm? Did Cor, when he touched his chin with a fingertip -- and then pushed upwards? All he knows is this, suspended, eye-to-eye and again Nyx is struck by the crags and the shadows in Cor’s face. The lines of him, the old scars: faint outline of stitches along his right eyebrow. The sunken portion of the outer orbit of his left eye, only visible because Nyx is so close. The pair of parallel lines high up on his forehead, strands of worn-smooth burn-scar. 

Newer marks in him, too, and some of them Nyx has even been personally present for: he can just about remind himself to forget about the time they’d all gone out to drinks and someone had made a pass at Gen, and that encounter had ended with the idiot knocked out cold against the edge of the marble bar. With Gen shaking out the hand that she’d used to punch him right in the throat. With Cor bleeding from a shallow but wide-gaped gash along his cheek and nearly all the way to the bridge of his nose. 

How relieved Nyx had been that he hadn’t had to do anything, that the gash hadn’t required stitches: that meant they didn’t have to come home to Prompto and a sudden breathless hysterical fit, to the tears of him that were born of worry, of anger. 

Instead Prompto had set his soft jaw into a furious line, and that had been _worse_ , to hear the growl of him, high and feral and entirely meant, entirely real, and Nyx couldn’t even call it a temper tantrum -- all he’d said was his father’s name.

And Cor had bowed his head, and said, softly, “I’m sorry.”

In the here and now, he pulls Cor close, and presses kisses along that new wound -- soon to be a new scar -- and if he’s trying to ignore, too, the overwhelming emotions that feel like they’re trying to push their way out of him, like thorns coming out of him as they fall gently and naturally together, well, he’s not planning to deny it or anything.

Not that Cor seems to want to call him out on it: maybe it’s something like having an entire conversation without words, of setting the whole thing aside.

What gives him the idea is -- the kiss that starts out chaste and then slides away from that in a tearing hurry -- the shiver that runs through him when Cor licks thoughtfully along the line of his teeth, and the soft shivering sound that he draws out of Cor as he runs his hand over the back of his head. 

The next kiss is rougher, the next, the next -- he can’t doubt that Cor wants this, because Cor’s rolling onto him, pressing him down, all the weight of him and the heat of his cock, all of him over Nyx’s thighs and it’s not enough, it can’t ever be enough, what could ever be enough for him -- 

It doesn’t matter if this is the first time this night, the second, the last, the lost-track-of-the-numbers -- it doesn’t matter because Nyx still wants. How can one person be greedy and generous at the same time? How can two?

And this time, it plays out like this -- he struggles against the flex of Cor’s hands on his shoulders for only a moment. For the pure show of it, for the way Cor’s grip grows stronger -- it should have been enough to bruise, enough to grind his bones together and make him hiss in pain, but Nyx does exactly the opposite -- arches closer, kisses him almost like a demand and a plea.

“Nyx.”

That’s all he has to say, really; the rest of it is in the way Cor’s eyes rake over him, like an actual touch, ravenous and sweet and Nyx literally doesn’t care that those two things can’t work together. Maybe for other people they don’t.

He and Cor aren’t really other people, and he’s always going to be grateful for that.

Nyx lunges up for another kiss, lets himself fly free of his senses and his reason as he bites at Cor’s mouth -- he wishes he could laugh -- he only groans in protest when Cor breaks away. Flash of receding lightning that only briefly catches on the strand of spit that lingers between them, linking their mouths -- it breaks in the next instant, because Nyx licks his lips and says, loud enough for the two of them, loud enough to make it clear: “Yeah.”

“Good, because it wasn’t a question,” and Cor’s laughing as he says it because that’s a lie, that’s a blatant lie and he probably knows it -- and Nyx would testify to it, with the need that lashes down his nerves, that leaves him shaking. 

He runs his nails down the entire length of Cor’s back -- not at all gently -- he thinks he really might be trying to draw blood, this time -- and his reward is the savage sweet lust that twists Cor’s features. The roll of his hips, downwards, and it’s all Nyx can do not to shout, not to clamp down with his own thighs and trap Cor’s hard cock between them.

He can’t do it anyway -- the next thing he knows is Cor’s hand around him, pumping him hard and rough and just the way he likes it, and he catches his breath on a shocked delighted gasp as Cor leans toward him. “Fuck me.”

“Don’t, don’t have to ask me twice,” Nyx gasps.

Cor’s over him, smiling, and there might even be a gleam of the predator in that smile -- and it’s no wonder his hands shake as he fumbles for the bottle of slick, hidden as it is in the blankets piled onto the bed -- he’s maybe drowning, already, even as he presses one finger after the other into Cor, three to stretch him good and wide and Cor’s so hot around him, yielding so easily, moaning soft and desperate, and he’s aching to fuck him.

Still he draws it out as long as he dares -- laughs when Cor growls and makes a fist and punches him, same shoulder that he’s already bitten -- Nyx hisses, grins a feral grin of his own and twists his wrist just so, fingers scissoring -- over him, above him, Cor curses, quietly cut-off, and tries to ride his hand on the downstroke -- 

“Not what you want is it?” Nyx grins, taunting, as he pulls his fingers out. Free hand on Cor’s thigh to maneuver him into position -- then he shifts that grip to Cor’s waist and presses him down, down, down.

Oh that slow madness, that bliss that eats away at every ounce of restraint, and he lets out a shaky breath once Cor’s fully seated. “Hell, you’re so good to me,” he manages, just barely.

“Not the way you want it.” Cor sounds like he’s winded, too -- but that impression only lasts for another moment, until he starts to move.

And Nyx again feels the breath being punched out of him -- entirely pinned on the sight of Cor doing this, looming above him, control clutched firmly in his white-knuckled fists.

Not so long that he’s content to be merely done to -- not so gone that the curse he wrings from Cor’s mouth once he plants his feet on the sheets and starts thrusting doesn’t spur him on too, like whip and lash to the need burning in his nerves -- not so enthralled that he fails to reach for Cor’s hand, another desperate link in the chains of their shared need -- chain that grows around them, longer and longer the closer to each other they get -- falling forever into the spaces of each other -- 

How he wishes he could hold on to this shared heat, to every strangled curse and every labored breath -- how he wishes he could be caught in this moment forever, lost in Cor --

“Nyx.”

Oh fuck, Cor sounds halfway to gone -- halfway to falling, or maybe he’s already teetering over that treacherous edge -- Nyx twists viciously into the next upstroke, the next, the next -- and he has to say it, he wants to see it, and he gasps, “Touch yourself Cor, come on, I want you to, come on -- ” 

And it’s a sweet sound to hear, the way Cor exhales and then doesn’t quite laugh, as he takes himself in hand -- telltale shake in his wrist, in his arm -- and starts stroking. The way his head falls back, all the lines of him freezing into a gorgeous grimace, as he comes all over Nyx’s chest. 

Which lets Nyx plunge into his climax, gratefully, and the storm fades out for a moment. 

The world fades away, and all he really knows is Cor’s skin against his -- even over his returning awareness of the roar of the rain, the cry of the thunder.

Lightning-hush that lets him hear -- whisper of trailing edges, a yawn, and the sound of a boy on the move -- but that movement is not heading toward them.

Clumsy but gentle as he pulls away from Cor, as he settles him into the blankets and throws trailing edges over, to at least try to cover him up -- and here’s his own shirt, miraculously not kicked under the bed, so he doesn’t have to be indecent when he goes looking for Prompto.

Who has landed on the couch in the living room, snuffling breaths that are just a little too quiet to be proper snores falling irregularly from his open mouth. Blanket sprawled out around him -- that Nyx gathers up and wraps properly around him, worn softness over his soft shoulders -- and Prompto mutters in his sleep, entirely indistinct sounds.

“Tell me about it in the morning,” Nyx whispers, in return, and he leans over and kisses golden fluff.

“Why don’t you do that when he’s actually awake to feel it?” 

Slurred question, slow footsteps, as Cor approaches in his dressing-gown, and then settles right next to his feet.

“Didn’t want to confuse him.”

“And in what world does that even make sense,” he hears Cor mumble -- before he settles against Nyx’s knee and goes quiet, softly settling into sleep.

“I guess I’ll tell you, too, at some point,” he says, before he pulls Prompto close and lets himself sleep, too.

The last thing he hears is: “I look forward to it.” And other words, some other weight of emotion he can’t quite find a name for, and -- will he have to ask Cor to tell him those words again, when he’s awake, when he’s ready?

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr at my FFXV sideblog [@ninemoons42-lestallumhaven](http://ninemoons42-lestallumhaven.tumblr.com/) or at my main [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/) \-- or, hey, if Tumblr becomes too rotten and we can't talk there any more, there's always Twitter, where I am @ninemoons42.


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